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Guardian Angel

GUARDIAN ANGEL, My Story, My Britain, charts the journey of a journalist and writer who moved from darling of the left to champion of the moral high ground. This memoir of her personal and professional life
reflects the cultural changes in society over more than three decades.

The book is among the opening titles released by Melanie's new
publishing company, Melanie Phillips Electric Media. It can be purchased
from emBooks.com as well as from amazon.com, amazon.co.uk and iBooks.

Melanie’s updates by email

A step too far for the butchers of Iran?

Today’s Times highlighted the barbarism with which the
Iranian regime deals with political dissent. One story
(£) reported that an Iranian actress, Marzieh Vafamehr who appears in the
Australian film My Tehran for Sale which is critical of the regime, has
been sentenced to 90 lashes and a year in prison for her starring role in this
film.

Another story
(£) reported that an Iranian student activist, 29 year-old Peyman Aref,
who was sentenced in March 2010 to a year in Tehran’s
notorious Evin prison for spreading propaganda against the regime, was chained
to a prison wall on Sunday and lashed 74 times with a leather whip for
‘insulting’ President Ahmadinejad:

‘The masked flogger used a course leather whip and delivered
the 74 lashes without pause. “I gritted my teeth. I didn’t scream, because I
didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of hearing a single cry from me,” Mr
Aref said. He suffers from a heart complaint and fainted halfway through his
ordeal.

... [Aref] said that he was risking further punishment by
telling The Times of his ordeal, but insisted: “We don’t just retreat
under pressure . . . They want to force us to leave Iran but I’ll resist to the
very end.”’

The courage of these young Iranians is astounding. And it is
vital that these cases are reported and that the names of these dissidents are
recorded, because international outrage does have an effect. The case of the
Christian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, (which I commented on here)
who has been sentenced to hang for refusing to renounce his faith has now been
referred to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself because of the
international outcry.

Yet the even more astounding thing is that, while America,
Britain and Europe have taken premature and wholly reckless action against
Egypt’s Mubarak and Libya’s Gaddafy on the grounds of supporting the human
rights of Egyptian and Libyan protesters, they have been all but silent on the
terrible savagery in Iran.

Worse still, they have been treating Iran with kid gloves
even though it has been in a state of self-declared war with America and the
west for more than three decades, has perpetrated countless acts of terrorism
against US and western interests, has been behind murderous attacks on
Coalition soldiers in Iraq whose government is now effectively in Iran's
pocket, threatens genocide against Israel, the forward salient of western
defences in the region, and is about to equip itself with nuclear weapons in
order to further its infernal aims. Yet the President of this ultimate rogue state that has declared war on America is invited to speak at Columbia University and allowed to address the UN in New York.

Now an event has occurred which offers perhaps the most
significant challenge to this wilful blindness. For the US says it has
foiled a terrorist plot backed by elements in the Iranian regime to assassinate
the Saudi ambassador to the US by blowing up a restaurant, as well as attacking
other targets within America. The Washington
Post reports:

'The suspects were identified as Manssor Arbabsiar, a
56-year-old from Texas, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of Iran’s Quds
Force, an elite division of that country’s Revolutionary Guard Corps
responsible for foreign operations.

In addition to killing the Saudi ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir,
officials said, the plot envisioned later striking other targets. The officials
said that the plan to kill the ambassador was directed by Tehran, and that
Arbabsiar has acknowledged that he was recruited and funded by men he
understood to be senior officers in the Quds Force.'

If this is true, it would mean this was a major terrorist
atrocity being planned by Tehran to take place on American soil – an act of war
by Iran against America in America. So astonishing are the implications of this
that Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy wonders aloud:

'The extraordinary detail of the alleged Iranian-backed plot to
assassinate Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, revealed
today by Attorney General Eric Holder, raises all sorts of questions. Why
would Iran have wanted to carry out such a killing here in the United States,
where its "fingerprints" on such a plot would have had - indeed, will
have -- such an
impact on U.S. policy toward Iran?

'If, as the now-unsealed amended complaint reveals, there
had been "a hundred, a hundred and fifty" people killed and injured,
including "senators", there would have been huge political pressure
on the White House to order a retaliatory military strike on Iran. An
Iranian spokesman has responded by rejecting the charges as a "ridiculous
show" - but will the Islamic Republic persist in what certainly appears to
be a newly aggressive policy?'

‘“In addition to holding these individual conspirators
accountable for their alleged role in this plot, the United States is committed
to holding Iran accountable for its actions.”’

I’ll believe it when I see it.

About Melanie

Melanie Phillips is a British journalist and author. She is best known
for her controversial column about political and social issues which
currently appears in the Daily Mail. Awarded the Orwell Prize for
journalism in 1996, she is the author of All Must Have Prizes, an
acclaimed study of Britain's educational and moral crisis, which
provoked the fury of educationists and the delight and relief of
parents.